FISHES—PHENOMENAL AND ECONOMICAL. 173 
correctly to the more considerable number of genera referred to this family, which 
possess the physiological distinction of being devoid of an air-bladder. To that 
anatomical fact they owe the circumstance of being sluggish, bottom-reposing fish. 
The Australian Whitings, Sillago and its allies, on the other hand, possess a well- 
developed air-bladder, and are of the most active habits, cruising about in shoals, 
after the manner of Red Mullets, over the surfaces of the sandy banks upon which 
they feed. Different species of these Whitings abound throughout Australian waters 
from Tasmania to Torres Straits, and are all held in high esteem for the lightness 
and delicacy of flavour and whiteness of their flesh. It is upon this account that 
they have received the title that has been popularly awarded them. 
The Flathead, genus Platycephalus, is another essentially characteristic Australian 
group that, like Sillago, possesses specific representatives throughout the seas of that 
Island-Continent, all of which are more or less esteemed for food. A  character- 
istic representative of the commonest Tasmanian species, Platycephalus bassensis, 
occupies the second position from the right immediately beneath the Barracouta in 
Plate XXVIII. While unrepresented in European waters by any specific type, the genus 
Platycephalus is closely related to the Bull-heads and Gurnards, and is on such 
account relegated to the same family of the Cottide. The true Gurnards or Gurnets, 
belonging to the genus Trigla, are typified by several Australian species, many of them 
being remarkable for the brilliant, butterfly-wing-like aspect of their large pectoral fins. 
None of them, however, attain to a large size or are sufficiently plentiful to constitute 
a marketable species, as in British waters. A fish of somewhat rare occurrence that 
is occasionally taken on the Tasmanian coast, and is also referable to the Cottide 
family, is the singular Velvet Fish, Holoxenus cutaneus. A photograph of a coloured 
plaster cast of this species occupies the second position from the left in the same serial 
line that contains the Flathead. The most remarkable feature of this species is not so 
much its form as its wonderful colouring, which may be a brilliant scarlet vermilion 
throughout, or a varied mixture of vermilion and orange. Added to this, the skin, 
which is devoid of scales, is very soft and loose and of a granular or pilose texture 
suggestive of the surface of wet flannel or velvet. 
The Grey Mullet family, Mugilide, is represented so abundantly, numerically and 
specifically, in the Australian seas and rivers as to constitute one of the leading 
economic groups. Its members agree, however, so nearly in all essential characters 
with their British, or it might be said, cosmopolitan, congeners as to dispense with 
the necessity of elaborate notice. 
